by Stella Riley
Having expected it, Rockliffe merely sighed. ‘If only it were that simple.’
‘It is,’ said Julian. ‘It’s what I and she and the children all want. How much simpler can it be? And you’ve already got an Arabella Brandon of your own, haven’t you?’
‘What I have,’ corrected his Grace, a hard note entering his voice, ‘is a problem, the complications arising from which are legion. To begin with, the duchess and I have unwittingly introduced an imposter to London society. No, please don’t interrupt, my lord. I feel sure you were about to say that I am exaggerating the case or that it is of scant importance – but you are wrong on both counts. You should also understand that I am more than a little annoyed. But let us move on to Elizabeth … who, since she is known to all as Mistress Brandon of Brandon Lacey, obviously cannot accept a proposal of marriage even if she wished to do so. And finally you, Arabella, are now in the frankly ludicrous position of never being able to appear in London under your own name at all.’ He paused briefly, then added, ‘Under the circumstances, what either you or his lordship wants is of no consequence whatsoever. The longer this charade goes on, the worse the situation will become … which means that I have no choice but to put an end to it.’
His words were greeted by a tense silence. Then, ‘How?’ demanded Julian, becoming unpleasantly aware that the situation was more complicated than he had supposed.
‘Ah. A sensible question at last.’
‘And what is the sensible answer?’
Rockliffe subjected the younger man to a long, cool gaze and finally said, ‘Lord Chalfont … being fully aware that you are currently labouring under strong emotions I am prepared to be tolerant. You would be wise, however, to retrieve a few of your manners from wherever you left them before you exceed my patience.’
Julian flushed slightly. ‘I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t intend to be rude. Sometimes I don’t … things just come out the wrong way.’
‘So I have noticed,’ murmured Rockliffe with a hint of dry amusement. ‘But returning to the issue at hand --’
‘Wait a moment,’ interposed Arabella quickly. ‘I realise you can’t ignore what you know – but must you act immediately? If you could wait just a few more weeks, Lizzie will be going home again and no one will be any the wiser.’
‘I am not sure if that is wishful thinking or rank naiveté. It needs only one person who knows either of you to catch sight of Elizabeth in town and both her name and yours are likely to be plastered across the gossip pages. The fact that your cousin was seen travelling unchaperoned with the Earl of Sherbourne has already made this a possibility. I hope that particular danger has been averted. But if I am mistaken and marriage becomes the only solution, we will be left with the difficulty of explaining to his lordship that his prospective bride’s name and background are not what he currently believes them to be.’ He paused, waiting for this to sink in. ‘It is all very well for you to hide your head in the sand and pretend that nothing is wrong, Arabella … but, in addition to what I have said so far, the hornet’s nest you and Elizabeth have created puts my wife in an awkward position – and that I will not tolerate.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I really am. We thought it would be all right and --’
‘It is beginning to strike me,’ said Rockliffe, a shade grimly, ‘that neither of you considered the eventual ramifications at all. However … a little earlier, you told me that Lord Brandon knows the truth. What --?’
‘Lord Brandon?’ demanded Julian suddenly. ‘Who is he?’
There was a brief silence while Arabella wished that she could make the duke vanish in a puff of smoke. Seeing this clearly written on her face, he said blandly, ‘Ah. I gather you neglected to tell Lord Chalfont that your eldest brother is a baron. Probably one of several things that slipped your mind, I suspect.’
‘The subject didn’t come up,’ she muttered uncomfortably. And to Julian, ‘Max knows I’m happy and don’t want to go home. He won’t tell Mama. At least, I don’t think he will.’
‘In which case, his lordship has been placed in the same unenviable position as myself,’ observed Rockliffe, rising to his not inconsiderable height. ‘I can think of only one way out of this tangle. It is not one either of you will like but perhaps it need only be of relatively short duration … so I ask you to hold that thought and not to interrupt. Arabella, you will return with me to London where you and Elizabeth will confess the fine joke you have played upon us all. My entire --’
‘It wasn’t a joke!’ protested Arabella.
‘It was most certainly a joke,’ repeated the duke firmly. ‘And I believe I desired you not to interrupt.’ He waited until she pressed her lips together and then resumed. ‘My friends will enjoy this enormously and have a great deal of fun at my expense … but they will also ensure that the story filters out to society at large in the least damaging way, carefully omitting all mention of your recent whereabouts. The two of you will probably become a nine-day-wonder but if you are charmingly contrite, you will be forgiven. In a few weeks, when the dust has settled, you will be free to either go home to Yorkshire or return here – depending on the wishes of your family. As for Elizabeth, if her father can be persuaded to agree, she may remain in St James Square with the duchess and myself for a while longer.’ He stopped speaking and eyed Julian and Arabella with an air of sardonic detachment. ‘You will wish to discuss it. Do so, by all means. I shall return to Newark for the night. But you may expect me by ten o’clock tomorrow morning in the happy anticipation, Arabella, of finding you ready to travel south with me.’
‘And if she isn’t?’ asked Julian.
‘If she is not,’ returned Rockliffe blandly, ‘we shall probably all regret it.’
* * *
Left looking helplessly at each other, Arabella was the first to speak. She said, ‘We have to talk about all this – but first, we should stop the children worrying.’
‘By telling them what?’ Julian refrained from admitting that he hadn’t stopped worrying; that the unlikelihood of her coming back if she once left was lying like a stone in his chest.
‘The truth. And if I make it sound like an adventure, they may not mind very much.’
The second Arabella walked into the nursery, Ellie hurtled across to hug her, saying fiercely, ‘You can’t go. You can’t leave us. Sir Julian – tell her!’
‘I have told her,’ he replied quietly. ‘And now she has something to tell you … so perhaps we could all sit?’
Rob joined Ellie in towing Arabella down between them on the sofa. Tom stayed where he was, staring into Julian’s eyes. He said, ‘Has the duke gone?’ And when Julian nodded, ‘Good. I knew you’d get rid of him. You won’t let anybody upset Miss Lizzie, will you?’
‘I’ll certainly do my best to stop them … and if I’m not here, I know I can rely on you. Now come and sit by me and listen.’
All three children fell silent, staring expectantly at Arabella. She cast a slightly wild glance at Julian and then said simply, ‘It’s a story about two girl cousins who were more like sisters – though one of their families was much richer than the other. They were invited to stay in London with a duke and duchess – yes, Tom, that duke. The first girl – the one from the poorer family – wanted to go but her papa wouldn’t let her. The second girl didn’t want to go and she thought that, if only one of them could go to London, it ought to be her cousin. So she had a clever idea.’ Arabella paused and shut her eyes for a moment. ‘She suggested that she and her cousin should change places without telling anyone.’
Ellie’s eyes grew wide. ‘Ooh! Do they look like twins?’
‘No. But that didn’t matter because no one where they were going knew what they looked like.’ Glancing across at Tom, Arabella could see that he already knew where her story was going. So far as she could tell, neither Rob nor Ellie had any idea as yet. ‘They travelled from their homes together and changed places when they got to Newark. One cousin – Elizabeth – went o
n to the duke’s house in London; the other one – me – came here to look after you.’ She paused and clasped her hands tightly together. ‘I’m sorry … but my name isn’t Lizzie. It is Arabella. At home, everyone calls me Belle.’
The silence when she finished speaking was a long one but inevitably it was Tom who broke it. He said bitterly, ‘Was you ever going to tell us? If that duke hadn’t come, would you even be telling us now?’
‘I wanted to tell you – all of you. But the secret belonged to Lizzie as well, so it didn’t seem right to share it. Are you angry with me, Tom?’
‘I don’t know. A bit, maybe.’
‘Why?’ asked Ellie. ‘It’s like a story in a book. I don’t mind. Do you, Rob?’
Rob shook his head. ‘I suppose we call you Miss Belle now?’
‘Yes – though it may take you a while to get used to it.’
‘That’s not important,’ said Tom impatiently. ‘What matters is that duke. He knows, doesn’t he? It’s why he came here. So what’s he going to do?’
‘He says that what Lizzie and I have done is causing all sorts of problems,’ confessed Arabella. ‘So he wants me to go to London for a little while to help put it right.’
All three children absorbed this. Then Ellie said, ‘Then you’d come back?’
She nodded, not quite daring to promise but adding persuasively, ‘It need only be for a few weeks. Would that be all right?’
‘I suppose,’ mumbled Tom. ‘What do you think, sir? Is this duke being fair?’
‘This isn’t about what is fair,’ replied Julian evasively, coming to his feet. ‘And nothing is decided yet. Meanwhile, I want a bath and dry clothes.’
And time, he thought as he walked out, to make sense of it all.
~ * * ~ * * ~
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
While Julian sat in the usual shallow depth of water that was also less hot than he would have liked, it started to dawn on him that there were a number of holes in what he’d been told so far.
Why hadn’t Arabella wanted to go to London? Wasn’t that what all girls wanted? Parties and balls, pretty clothes and sophisticated admirers … perhaps even a husband? He could understand the other girl agreeing to the exchange because she was getting the better end of it. But what had Arabella got out of it? A dilapidated, understaffed house, three illegitimate children and a man who was only ever complete when he sat at a harpsichord. If there was sense in that, he couldn’t see it. What he could see, only too clearly, was that when she had first come to Chalfont, she had planned to stay only as long as her cousin remained in London. There had never been any intention of permanence … so why should that change now?
He wondered about her family. He thought about some of the suggestions she had made regarding the home farm and tenants … and what knowledge like that said about her background. She was related to a duke, for God’s sake; she had also spoken of brothers – though he couldn’t remember how many – and one of them was a baron. He found himself dwelling on that fact along with the possibility of wealth. It did not occur to him that, leaving money aside, the Earl of Chalfont substantially out-ranked Baron Brandon. He merely saw his personal limitations and liabilities … and total lack of assets.
And yet, regardless of any of that, Arabella insisted that she didn’t want to leave. If she truly meant that – and he couldn’t begin to imagine why she would – then she must also mean what she said about coming back. But if she thought that would be possible, she hadn’t considered the matter properly because, whatever her feelings were, Julian couldn’t imagine her family allowing it. They would probably be horrified that she had been living under his roof at all.
Climbing out of the bathtub before the water was completely cold and reaching for a towel, he tried convincing himself that losing her wouldn’t be the end of the world. He had music again; the children were less of a mystery; and the wine money had temporarily eased his financial burdens. Life without her would go on as it had before and he’d manage because he had to. The trouble was, the prospect left his insides frozen with misery.
Two rooms away, Arabella was telling herself that everything might have been much worse. Rockliffe hadn’t dragged her away with him; he hadn’t threatened to write to Mama; and, if he really was angry, it didn’t show. The children – even Tom – had taken her revelations better than she had expected. And Julian had brushed the whole thing aside … seeming to care for nothing at all so long as she stayed.
He had said it wasn’t purely because of the children. He had said … things that made her hope for something she had tried very hard not to hope for. But if he truly couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving, didn’t that mean that – even if he didn’t know it himself yet – he had perhaps grown fond of her?
But that wasn’t a possibility she dared contemplate, so she set it aside and forced herself to go back over everything the duke had said … particularly the parts that affected Elizabeth. Then she was suddenly struck by a breath-taking possibility; a possibility which would give Julian at least one of the advantages she wanted for him. She turned it over and over in her mind … wondering how best to make it happen. And finally, wanting to look her best for the evening ahead, she put on the prettiest of her cousin’s gowns and sent for Violet to tidy her hair.
The latter took some time because the maid wanted a proper account of the garbled tale Ellie had taken downstairs to the kitchen. Typically, at the end of it all, Violet said, ‘So everything you told me about your cousin – all of that was really you, was it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, God knows why you’d want to be here when you could be going to balls and suchlike in London. You must have windmills in your head.’ And then, with a sly smile, ‘Not that his young lordship is hard to swallow, is he?’
‘No. Is my hair finished?’
Violet nodded, then said casually, ‘A girl could do worse.’
‘I’m late.’ Arabella rose and headed for the door. ‘And only ladies’ maids of very long-standing are allowed this sort of conversation.’
Julian was already in the parlour, tidier but looking no less tense than he had done an hour ago. Almost before she had got through the door, he said, ‘What have you decided?’
‘I haven’t decided anything – and I won’t until we have discussed it.’
‘Why? You already know what I think – what I want. But that’s beside the point, isn’t it?’ Hands in his pockets, he kept his eyes on the carpet at his feet. ‘You’ll do what you have to. The duke hasn’t left you with much choice.’
‘It isn’t his decision,’ she began.
‘It’s not mine, either.’ He turned away to stare out of the window. He couldn’t look at her. Since the night he’d kissed her, the temptation to do it again had become a constant ache. Right now, he wanted to snatch her up in his arms and never let go. His control was hanging by a thread. If he looked at her, it would snap. He said, ‘Just don’t make any promises you can’t keep.’
‘I wasn’t planning to. Julian, can we please sit down and --’
The jangling of the doorbell caused her to stop speaking. Without a word, Julian stalked away to throw the door open … and found himself face to face with Dr Featherstone.
‘Paul?’ he said blankly. ‘What brings you here?’
‘A pleasure to see you, too,’ retorted the doctor. ‘Am I allowed inside?’
‘Of course.’ Julian stepped back. ‘Sorry.’
Dropping his hat and gloves on a table, Paul said, ‘But for Davy Padgett breaking his leg, I’d have been here sooner. Abigail Caldercott sent a note saying you’d been summoned home because of an alarming visitor.’ With a grin and a bow for Arabella, he said, ‘Good evening, Mistress Marsden. I apologise if I intrude but Miss Abby was worried enough to think someone ought to check that all is well.’
Groaning inwardly and wondering how many times she’d have to do this, Arabella said briskly, ‘We had a visit from the Duke of Rockliffe, to whom I am
distantly related. He came because he has guessed that my cousin and I exchanged places and that it is Elizabeth, not I, who is currently a guest in his London house.’ Holding her head high, she dropped a curtsy and added, ‘I am Arabella Brandon, by the way. And I apologise for the deception.’
He stared at her in awed fascination while he absorbed this remarkable revelation and then said, ‘Well that certainly explains a few things Janet and I had wondered about.’ And to Julian, ‘Did you know about this?’
‘Not until today. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Not matter?’
‘No,’ said Julian stubbornly.
‘So the duke travelled from London just to pay a social call, did he?’
‘Not exactly,’ admitted Arabella. ‘He wants the situation corrected.’
‘Yes. I imagine he would – and quickly, too. Is he still here?’
‘No. But we can look forward to a return visit tomorrow.’ Julian poured a glass of wine and handed it to his friend. ‘Are you staying for dinner?’
‘If that was an invitation and you’re not wishing me at the devil – yes.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ mumbled Julian. ‘Just sit down, will you?’
Paul grinned at Arabella. ‘Graciousness personified, isn’t he?’
‘It’s been a difficult day,’ she replied repressively. ‘But since you’re here to keep Julian company, it might be a good idea if I ate with the children this evening.’
‘Please don’t run away on my account,’ he said quickly.
‘I’m not running away at all. I’m making sure the children aren’t still anxious and I’m giving the two of you a chance to talk – which I presume is what you both want.’ She smiled at Julian. ‘You’ll be in the library as usual?’
He hunched one shoulder. ‘Yes.’